London is wasting away

More jobs will go as the City's vaunted skills slide towards obsolescence

By

Stephen Lewis

February 9, 1998 5:00 p.m. GMT

It is 10 years since, in the wake of the October 1987 stock market crash, I forecast 50,000 job losses in the City. After this, I was called upon to write countless articles on the fundamental flaws in the structure of the London securities market as it had evolved before and after Big Bang. Chief sources of weakness were the financial consequences of the glut of capital attracted to market-making in London, once the old barriers to entry had been scrapped. It never seemed likely that there would be enough business to provide an acceptable return on this capital in a competitive market environment.